Homeowners have inundated the Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance (GCTCA), an umbrella body which oversees residents’ associations in Cape Town, with complaints about the value of their properties increasing, according to GCTCA chairperson Philip Bam.

Municipal councillors’ mandates are naturally directed by their political party philosophy and specific policies. But there is an overarching mandate for all local authorities, namely the constitutional mandate. Local government is the only sphere of South African government for which the country’s constitution stipulates a specific mandate.

Allow me to congratulate all those political parties who participated in the local government elections. Some put their hands up for the first time, others tried again to ensure that the marginalized people have a voice. To those who did not succeed,try again.

Ndifuna Ukwazi welcomes the Western Cape Provincial Cabinet’s decision to consider affordable housing on the Tafelberg site. A Provincial Cabinet resolution today calls for a “financial model” to be secured for the development of social housing on the site.

It has been over a year since the City of Cape Town asked for comments from the public as part of the public participation process during its permit application to be allowed to continue discharging untreated effluent into our coastal waters and MPA’s. We have had no feedback or answers to our queries and objections, nor have we been advised as to whether or not the permit was granted and if so under what conditions.

Civic associations accuse the City of using bullying tactics and deciding the end result before the public participation process has started, but the City says the the proposal was an ‘appropriate development mix’…

Civic organisations from across the city are becoming increasingly concerned at the cosy relationship between the City of Cape Town and private developers, saying inappropriate developments were being bulldozed through with objections routinely ignored.

The GCTCA sincerely hopes that sanity will prevail and that political and housing development greed will not be the victor at the extreme loss of food security and very scarce water supplies, as well as jobs.

The Philippi farming community gives the Cape 200 000 tonnes of vegetables and flowers every year. Only 20 kilometres from the centre of town, Philippi has been Cape Town’s bread basket for nearly 2000 years. Carte Blanche asks: why are the city’s own town planners threatening its survival during one of the most devastating droughts this country has ever seen?

They called for an “urgent investigation” into the “irrational and unconstitutional” actions of Environmental, Planning and Development MEC Anton Bredell and mayor Patricia de Lille threatening the PHA, which is a critical food security resource.

With bullets whizzing over their heads, through their windows and into the walls of their homes, it is no wonder there is little faith in Ceasefire – with Hanover Park Community Police Forum’s secretary, Mr Weldon Cameron, saying at a meeting on “Gangsterism, Trauma and Substance Abuse” that Ceasefire does not work on the Cape Flats.

The City, which works for its corporate citizens, providing them with a “red tape to red carpet” special service that us mere mortals can only dream of, is implementing a massive growth strategy to increase square metres of office, conference, hotel and private living space in the central business district (CBD) and close to it.This makes the land in the CBD much more valuable, making billions for the property developers and hundreds of millions in additional rates annually for the City.

“We do not see gang violence ceasing. People are killed daily due to gang violence. The question we need to be asking is why is this happening in this province while gangsterism seems to be under control in other provinces,” Bam said.

Aerial photographs of the oceans around the Southern tip of the continent went viral earlier this year causing outrage. The images showed that the City of Cape Town was pumping 55 million litres of untreated sewage into Table Bay every day. New scientific analysis now reveals that 87 000 carcinogenic, hormone disrupting chemicals could be seeping from the sewage mass into the oceans. Yet, the city is without any immediate solutions. Carte Blanche investigates the far-reaching impact of the filth.